Can you trust your mechanic?

[Tamas]

It took me yrs to find a good one and now I will never leave.

I used to have one of those, father & son team. Very down to earth, very straight and very honest in their work. But they went under, financially. They were renting/leasing the garage from a gas station, they invested close to $250k in new gear....then the gas station got bought out by one of the big boys, they gave them a 2 week notice to vacate. They tried to fight it with the lawyers but in the end the bulldozer won and levelled everything, they didn't even have time to get all the new equipment out....lost it all!

 

[The Kraken]

Think I'm going to find myself a 73 Ford Maverick with a 6 cylinder and 3 speed manual transmission with the shifter in the steering column.

Spark, compression, mixture.

Veni, vidi, vici . . .

the K

 

[D_B]

Throwing parts at a problem ... we have a phrase for that .. filling up the parts shotgun and blasting away with both barrels

we have to train constantly at our dealership, to stay certified in the areas that each tech is qualified to work in .. it does it cost more to take it to the dealer to work on, than an independent , but the dealer tech is skilled in that car, has training to help in diagnoses, and may have seen that problem before ... I get cars that other shops have tried to fix by throwing parts at it, all the time

Ask questions of the place your taking your car, ask them to explain everything, if you don't like the answers, see the manager, he is more than happy to help you (or he should be)

 

[frenchy07]

Over the last 4 years I have worked very closely with several local dealerships, you see I am (or was) an Automotive Service Instructor. I have spent (quite literally) that last 4 years banging my head aginst a wall trying to convince my advisory (dealers) board that my students needed to be able to think. This year (after a 4 year battle) we were finally "allowed" to purchase our first and only scanner (well 2nd if you count my palm pilot and yes you can do a lot with a palm and the right software).

The dealers didn't (and don't) want our students to know anything about gas analyzers (not a green state here) or wave forms. They prefer to use the ole "throw parts at it" philosophy. Could tell you horror stories that were solved with a set of spark plugs and a little diagnostic thinking.

The local dealerships do spend a lot of time having their tech's do training and our independents don't. The smart independent will spend just as much time in the classroom as the dealership does, they have to to keep up with Detroit (or wherever they call home).

I worked very hard to instill a sense of responsibility in my students, along with honesty. Sadely I won't have the opportunity anymore. On the lighter side I don't have to deal with a bunch of closed minded service managers that only wanted to cherry pick my best students, close out the quality indepentents and lock the students into a $7 an hour internship for 2 years while billing the customer 90 bucks an hour, then convince them (the students) that they have their best interest at heart and higher education has no place for them (they hated when I talked about college).

Now don't get me wrong, being a technician in this day and age can be very rewarding, expecially if you are in the right marketplace. Good tech's are worth more than they are being paid, and some are making 100,000 plus. Good tech's that leave a corporate store often take their clients with them and in this day and age if you find a good tech stay with them, they will take care of you. The old adage of "people will change doctors quicker than their tech" is true. Seen it, many times.

Would of loved to teach in a "green" state, tech's there have to rely more on their skills than those in these non green states. For me it's back to my 69 Firebird, no scanner needed .

 

[The Chairman]

30 years in the automotive business from when I was 12 to 42. The last fifteen of those years were working for Goodyear. I worked for a "Fifth Gear" in Gainesville ('81) and Elliot, one of the brothers who owned the entire chain, said something that I have found to be true. There is no such thing as a bad mechanic, however there are LOTS of bad managers.

Yes, I was a Master Automotive Technician, Master Truck Technician, held all the machining certs and I know more about tires than I care to admit. We always had TOO much business because of my simple philosophy: treat your customers like they are your friends. We had continual 20% increases at the last Goodyear I was at. I wasn't cheap, but my techs DID whatever we charged for. If they didn't fix it right, they usually fixed it for free. If we couldn't solve a problem, we would not charge them. People came in droves.